Act theories and the attitudes

Synthese - Theories of propositions as complex acts, of the sort recently defended by Peter Hanks and Scott Soames, make room for the existence of distinct propositions which nonetheless represent...     

Linguistic labor and its division

Philosophical Studies - This paper exposes a common mistake concerning the division of linguistic labor. I characterize the mistake as an overgeneralization from natural kind terms; this misleads...     

Stigma against false confessors impacts post‐exoneration financial compensation

False confessors are stigmatized more than other exonerees. Traditional theories of stigma suggest that this difference may result from confessors being seen as more responsible for their own wrongful conviction. In the current study, we examined an important tangible consequence of stigma against false confessors—namely, that it might impede their ability to win financial restitution in post‐exoneration civil lawsuits. Mock jurors (N = 129), recruited online, read a case summary in which an exoneree is seeking damages after being wrongly convicted due to a false confession or eyewitness misidentification, which either did or did not result from police misconduct. When the exoneree falsely confessed in the absence of police misconduct, mock jurors rated him as most responsible for his own conviction and expressed the most doubt over his actual innocence. Contrary to legal criteria, they also awarded him smaller compensatory and punitive damage awards. Notably, the false confessor was seen as more responsible than the misidentified exoneree even if his interrogation was highly coercive. In turn, false confessors who were seen as more responsible received smaller damage awards. Implications for trial procedure and exoneree compensation are discussed.     

The Political Activity of Evangelical Clergy in the Election of 2000: A Case Study of Five Denominations

This article focuses on the political participation of ministers from five evangelical Protestant denominations that differ in theology, polity, and history. Despite such differences, these clergy respond to political influences in much the same fashion. We find that the standard theories of political participation have varying success in accounting for their political involvement. Sociodemographic explanations provide little help, but psychological engagement with politics has more explanatory power. Professional role orientations are the best predictors of actual participation. And the clergy who see moral reform issues as the most important confronting the country—and who hold conservative views on such issues—are most likely to become engaged. Finally, membership in Christian Right organizations serves to elicit more activity than might occur if ministers were left to internally motivated participation. Despite the emphasis on other contextual variables in some work on clerical politics, we find that communications exposures, congregational influences, and even the support of clerical colleagues have very limited independent effects on political involvement.     

Teens on the Internet—commercial application of a deconstructive analysis of ‘teen zine’ features

This paper presents the authors' approach to understanding drivers of interest for teen e‐zines (Internet magazines). The paper shows how a deconstruction of the current set of e‐zines provides the raw material for a conjoint measurement study, whereby the elements are mixed and matched in order to create new test concepts. From reactions to those test concepts one can identify four newly emerging segments: the ‘indifferents’, the ‘adults in training’, the ‘media and me’ and the ‘talk and celebrate being a teen’. Deconstruction applied to the competitive frame provides both a deeper understanding of the e‐zine landscape and input for newer and better e‐zines that are targeted to specific mindsets. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications.     

The effect of self-attribute relevance on how self-esteem moderates attitude change in dissonance processes

An experiment was conducted to examine the conditions under which self-esteem operates as an expectancy, as a resource, or does not influence cognitive dissonance processes. Based on the self-standards model of dissonance (Stone & Cooper, 2001), it was predicted that following a high-choice counter-attitudinal behavior: (a) priming positive self-attributes that were relevant to the discrepant behavior would cause participants with high self-esteem to report more attitude change as compared to participants with low self-esteem, (b) priming positive self-attributes that were irrelevant to the behavior would cause participants with high self-esteem to report less attitude change as compared to participants with low self-esteem, and (c) priming neutral self-attributes would eliminate self-esteem moderation of attitude change. The results of the attitude change measure supported the predictions. The discussion explores different processes by which the accessibility of cognitions about the self mediate dissonance arousal and reduction.     

Experiences of transgender prisoners and their knowledge,attitudes, and practices regarding sexual behaviors and HIV/STIs: A systematic review

Background: Despite transgender people being more visible in prison systems, research suggests they are at higher risk of experiencing sexual violence compared to other prisoners. Research also suggests that transgender prisoners experience harassment, and physical and sexual assault by fellow prisoners, and prison officers who lack transgender-specific health knowledge. There exist no systematic reviews on the experiences of transgender people in prisons. This review aims to fill this research gap. The following question developed in consultation with transgender, sexual health/HIV and corrective services stakeholders has guided the systematic review: What are transgender and gender-diverse prisoners’ experiences in various prison settings and what are their knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding sexual behaviors and HIV/STIs?

Methods: The review followed the PRISMA guidelines and searches were conducted in four databases for the period of January 2007 to August 2017. Studies were assessed against predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Included studies were peer-reviewed, written in English with online full-text availability and reported data on transgender and gender-diverse prisoner experiences relevant to the research question.

Results: Eleven studies (nine qualitative, one quantitative, one mixed-methods; nine in USA, two in Australia) met the criteria for review. Four studies were of high quality, six were of good/acceptable quality, and one study was of modest quality. Transgender and gender-diverse prisoners reported a range of challenges which included sexual assault, discrimination, stigma, harassment, and mistreatment. Information on their sexual health and HIV/STIs knowledge, attitudes, practices is in short supply. Also, their lack of access to gender-affirming, sexual health/STIs and mental health services is commonplace.

Conclusions: The experiences of transgender prisoners as reported in this review are almost uniformly more difficult than other prisoners. Their “otherness” is used as a weapon against them by fellow prisoners through intimidation and violence (including sexual) and by prison officers through neglect and ignorance.     

Moderation of the relation between person–environment congruence and academic success: Environmental constraint,personal flexibility and method

The relation of interest–major congruence to indicators of college success was examined as it was moderated by environmental constraint, individual flexibility, and congruence definition in an initial sample of 88,813 undergraduates (38,787 men and 50,026 women) from 42 different colleges and universities in 16 states. College achievement (GPA after 1 semester and 2 years), persistence (enrollment status after 1 year and after 2 years) and major persistence in year 3 were used as criteria of college success. The significance of congruence (i.e., Euclidean distance and profile correlation) and its moderators above that of measures of academic achievement (i.e., ACT scores) and gender were examined for each of the college outcome criteria using hierarchical modeling. Results indicated that both the environmental constraint of the major and the interest flexibility of the individual moderated the congruence–outcome relation for both types of congruence indices. There was a greater relation between congruence and college outcomes for those majors that had more homogeneity and were more differentiated (i.e., were more constrained) than for majors where this was not true. There was a stronger relation between congruence and college outcomes for those individuals with lower overall profile levels (i.e., low flexibility) than those with high. Findings point to the importance of interest–major congruence in the college outcome process, but also highlight the complexity of the congruence–outcome relation.     

Problems and solutions for a hybrid approach to grounding practical normativity

Source Hybridism about practical reasons is the position that facts that constitute reasons sometimes derive their normative force from external metaphysical grounds, and sometimes from internal. Although historically less popular than either Source Internalism or Source Externalism, hybridism has lately begun to garner more attention. Here, I further the hybridist's cause by defending Source Hybridism from three objections. I argue that we are not warranted in rejecting hybridism for any of the following reasons: that hybridists cannot provide an account of normative weight, that hybridists are committed to implausible results concerning practical deliberation, or that Source Hybridism is objectionably unparsimonious.